It is well known that people purchase medications prescribed by doctors to address illnesses or unhealthy conditions. Each prescription generally is delivered to the user in a vial with instructions regarding, for example, the name of the medication and the frequency in which the medication is to be ingested. In a case where a user is taking one or two medications, he or she can generally remember to take the medications at the correct times.
However, certain users require several medications, each to be taken at varying intervals. This leaves the user to his or her own devices to sort through many vials, remembering which medication is to be taken at which time. This system, while simple, can be confusing. The user is at risk of mistakenly taking too much or too little of a prescribed medication, which can be dangerous. Further, some households have multiple people taking medications. While certain entities have placed color coded-rings about the necks of these vials, there is no easily identifiable way to discern which of the vials are for which family member.
To address this issue, medication cases have been developed with individual compartments that are each labeled for a particular day of the week. The user can then sort the pills into each of the compartments according to which pills need to be taken on which days. If the user is correct in his or her sorting, this system is effective to indicate to the user whether or not he or she has taken the required medication for the day. However, this system also depends on the user to correctly sort each of the medications into the correct individual compartments. Further, pills can spill from one compartment to the next.
Recently, a system has been developed by Prairie Stone Pharmacy in which a user's medications are delivered in individual packets connected together by perforated connections to form a strip. All of the medications that a user requires for a day (or another particular time period) is stored in a single packet. The user's medications for the next day are stored in the adjacent packet. Each packet includes indicia that instruct the user at which time to take the medication. For example, a first packet indicates Monday, the second packet indicates Tuesday, etc. Further, the strip is stored in a container, where the container has an opening, and the strip may be pulled out of the container through the opening. The user can tear off individual packets, while the remaining packets stay in the container.
Several problems still exist with this most recent system. First, the system provides no structure to aid the user in grasping the first packet filled with medication. In other words, when this system is delivered, the entire strip must disposed within the container to protect the medication, and the user is required to open the container and feed the strip through the opening him or herself. Next, the opening of the container has no structure to pinch or otherwise maintain the strip or aid in tearing a first packet from a second packet. Because the container does not grasp the strip, after a packet is torn away from the strip, the strip is not adequately held within the opening of the container. Finally, the system provides no indication that a user is running low on medication. Thus, without looking inside container, the user has no idea if he or she must refill the prescription.